The Morphology Core will provide comprehensive morphologic procedures and analyses for the 7 component Projects. All 7 component Projects will use genetically defined and/or engineered mice that will require morphologic analyses. Thus, a core facility is needed to provide the highest quality, most efficient, and cost-effective morphologic services. By far, the most heavily used service of this Core will be quantitative analyses of atherosclerotic lesions in the aorta and the innominate arteries of mice. However, a broad range of morphologic procedures are required by the 7 projects that include immuno-labeling of tissues, labeling and analysis of cultured cells and isolated cells with fluorescent probes for confocal microscopy, gene product detection (immuno-histology and in situ hybridization) in tissues and cultured cell systems, and histopathologic assessment of the aorta and innominate arteries for the effects of gene manipulation in mice. In addition, a full range of electron microscopic techniques will be available through this Core including conventional thin-sectioning as well as state-of-the-art rapid freezing and deep-etching techniques, which provide powerful approaches to visualization of lipids and matrix components.